Growing a thriving local community takes all of us working together. Our farmers work lovingly and tirelessly on their harvests. Small food producers keep our product economy local. But without our support, these cornerstones of our community can't thrive.
It's up to all of us to grow Western New York - through supporting local businesses. Through buying and eating local foods and produce. Through using our dollars, our energy, and our resources to be good stewards of our community.
When we invest in local food, we're investing in our neighbors. We're connecting with traditions that have stood for generations. And we're doing our part to sustain a healthy future for ourselves and our families. Because when we buy local, we all grow local.
Help Our Community Grow
Take the Eat Local WNY food pledge
Where you spend your food dollars matters! Purchasing just 10% of your food from local farmers and producers can help to grow a stronger more sustainable local food economy in WNY. Join the Eat Local WNY Campaign and pledge to support local farmers and producers.
Locally sourced ingredients support our community. Each dollar you spend at a local farm or business stays here, helping WNY to thrive. You're not just supporting them - you're investing in your neighbors
Know Where Your Food Comes From
When your food is grown or produced locally, you know what's in it - and what isn't. You get to know the person who made it, and see the love and care that goes into feeding our community.
Seasonal Tastes Better
Have you tasted a local strawberry picked in June? A local peach at the end of July? When you eat food at the peak of its freshness, without artificial ripening or preserving, you'll notice a difference.
Good for the environment
WNY has fantastic soil for growing crops. Our local farmers are not just taking care of our land, they're doing the environment a favor by eliminating long distance shipping and packaging needs.
Watch Our Stories
It takes farmers, producers, and you all working together to keep WNY vibrant & thriving. Learn more about the role we all play in our local food community.
When you sign the WNY Food Pledge we ask you to commit to supporting local farmers, producers, and the restaurants and businesses that buy from them. Everyone starts with a goal of purchasing at least 10% locally, but you can increase your goal if you are already reaching that. First you will tell us about yourself and what you normally buy so we know where you are starting out. Then, each week for 3 months you will track your food purchases and let us know how much was spent on locally grown and produced food. You will share this information with us in an online survey that we will send to you by text message. We will let you know if you are reaching your goal and provide resources on where you can find local food.
The goal of the WNY Food Pledge is to grow our local food economy in New York. New York is the 4th largest agriculture producing state in the country, but much of the food we buy still comes from across the country or the world. WNY is an agriculturally rich region home to a wide range of farmers and food producers who grow and produce a large variety of food. The WNY Food Pledge invites Western New Yorkers to explore the vast variety of food we grow right in this region. In purchasing from local farmers and producers we not only get to enjoy some of the freshest and most delicious food in the world, but we can keep our food dollars local and grown the economy and economic viability of our region. Even better, small local farmers are important stewards of our natural resources and buying food grown nearby helps reduce the resources needed to bring it from farm to table. That helps build a healthy more sustainable food system for everyone.
You may have heard the term “eat local” in lots of different contexts. When you sign the WNY Food Pledge, we encourage you to purchase fruits, vegetables, meat, diary, eggs and other agricultural products that were grown or harvested in Western New York. These can be purchased direct from farmers at a farmers’ markets or through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or from food retailers that prioritize locally grown and produced food. For bakery items, packaged and processed foods, beverages and pantry items consider purchasing from New York-based producers. If you go out to eat, prioritize restaurants that purchase food from local farmers and producers. A list of resources for purchasing locally grown and produced food can be found here.
We ask you to report on how much money you spend on 1.) groceries, including fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, and packaged grocery items like canned goods, pantry items, drinks, etc. and 2.) prepared foods from restaurants or prepared food businesses, including food trucks, pop-ups, takeout, and traditional restaurants. First, we will ask how much of your food purchases are locally grown and produced and then we will ask you about other purchases. This way we can add these and calculate the percent of your purchases that are local.
To make it easier, you can include your total grocery and restaurant purchases from retailers and restaurants that prioritize local in the locally produced question even if some of that food may not have been sourced locally. This way you don’t have to split up the cost of your salad at a restaurant that includes a mix of local and non-local produce. While some supermarkets may offer local products, the majority are not. If you shop at regular supermarkets and make an effort to choose locally grown and produced foods, you can choose to separate those out and include in the locally produced question. The important thing is to stay consistent with what you report so we can see changes over time.
We also ask you to report on household food spending, but if you share the food purchasing responsibilities with someone else in your household, you can provide an estimate or report just for what you buy yourself. If you chose to do this, just make sure you only include purchases you make yourself in future weeks.
The WNY Local Food Pledge is managed by the Community Health Interventions Lab at the University at Buffalo with support from a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Local Food Promotion Program Grant awarded to FreshFix to develop and support a WNY food hub serving local farmers, producers, restaurants, nonprofits, and other small businesses. If you have questions, you can reach us by e-mail.
The phone numbers and e-mails collected through the pledge sign-up form will be used to contact you to collect data each week about your purchases. We will also send a monthly e-mail to let you know what is in season locally and where you can buy local food. The University at Buffalo will store your data on its secure servers and will not share this data with others. Your contact information is tied to your data so that we can update you on your pledge progress. However, we will not report any of your data with your name attached. All purchases will be combined and summarized for a report of how much local food is being purchased in WNY. The goal of this report will be to show how much we can grow the Western New York economy by keeping our food purchases local.
Eat Local WNY initiative supported by FreshFix and UB School of Public Health and Health Professions through funding by the USDA.
